Category Archives: epicurus

The Epicurean Roots of Some Classical Liberal and Misesian Concepts

This presentation was delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference organized by the Ludwig von Mises Institute on March 18, 2005, in Auburn, Alabama

On page 147 of Human Action, Ludwig von Mises writes:

The historical role of the theory of the division of labor as elaborated by British political economy from Hume to Ricardo consisted in the complete demolition of all metaphysical doctrines concerning the origin and the operation of social cooperation. It consummated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind inaugurated by the philosophy of Epicureanism.

This is a rather strong statement. Epicureanism, says Mises, inaugurated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind. There are several other passages in his books where he mentions this philosophy in a very favourable light, but without ever explaining in details why. And although a lot of attention has been devoted to the influence of Aristotle, Aquinas, the Scholastics, the French liberals and others on Austrian ideas, as far as I know, nobody has ever paid attention to Epicurus.

Now, why would Mises make such a claim in relation to a philosophy that has been so reviled for 2000 years? Stacks of new books devoted to Plato, Aristotle and other philosophers of Antiquity appear every year. But if you go to a university library, you will usually find a shelf or two containing books on Epicureanism, and that’s for all those that were published in the past hundred years.

Epicureanism has been largely forgotten. And when it is mentioned, it is usually the distorted view that has been propagated since Antiquity that is being repeated. Epicureanism is said to be the philosophy of “Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you die.” An “Epicure” is a depraved and irresponsible individual only concerned with bodily pleasures. In Austrian terms, we would say he has very high time preference.

I even read in an article that the unbridled hedonism of the Epicureans played an important role in the transformation of ancient Rome from a republic to an empire. There is not a shred of historical evidence that they had that kind of influence, and Epicureans were not a licentious lot anyway. On the contrary, their goal was tranquility of mind. For them, it is true, all pleasures were good, including those of the body. But they tried to attain happiness by planning their lives in the long term in the most rational way possible.

Epicurus’ ethics can be summed up by this sentence from his Letter to Menoeceus: “For it is not drinking bouts and continuous partying and enjoying boys and women, or consuming fish and the other dainties of an extravagant table, which produce the pleasant life, but sober calculation which searches out the reasons for every choice and avoidance and drives out the opinions which are the source of the greatest turmoil for men’s souls.”

Let me briefly give you some general information. Epicurus was born in 341 B.C., only six years after Plato’s death. He was 18 when Alexander the Great died. This event conventionally separates the classical Greece of independent city-states from the Hellenistic period, when Alexander’s generals and their dynasties ruled vast kingdoms in the former Persian Empire. He set up his school in a Garden in the outskirt of Athens. There is very little that survived from his many books. But fortunately, the work of his Roman disciple Lucretius, who lived in the first century B.C.E., De Rerum Natura, or On the Nature of Things, was rediscovered in the 15th century.

Through this work, Epicureanism had a major influence on the development of science in the following centuries. Epicurus had borrowed and refined the atomic hypothesis of earlier philosophers, and De Rerum Natura was studied and discussed by most scientists and philosophers of the West. The physics of Epicureanism, which explains that worlds spontaneously emerge from the interaction of millions of tiny particles, still looks amazingly modern. It is the only scientific view coming out of the Ancient World that one can still read today and find relevant.

Those influenced by Epicureanism include Hobbes, Mandeville, Hume, Locke, Smith, and many of the British moralists up to the 19th century. They not only discussed the Atomic theory, but Epicurean ethics, his views on the origin of society, on religion, his evolutionary account of life, and other aspects of his philosophy.

To me, Epicureanism is the closest thing to a libertarian philosophy that you can find in Antiquity. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, were all statists to various degrees, glorified political involvement, and devised political programs for their audiences of rich and well-connected aristocrats. Epicurus focused on the individual search for happiness, counselled not to get involved in politics because of the personal trouble it brings, and thought that politics was irrelevant. His school included women and slaves. He had no political program to offer and one can find no concept of collective virtues or order or justice in his teachings. On the contrary, the search for happiness implied that individuals should be as free as possible to plan their lives. To him, as one of his sayings goes “natural justice is a pledge guaranteeing mutual advantage, to prevent one from harming others and to keep oneself from being harmed.

In a letter to William Short sent in 1819, Thomas Jefferson writes “I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.” But what’s also interesting is that our friends the Marxists also thought Epicurus was a great philosopher. Marx himself did his doctoral dissertation on the differences between the atomism of Epicurus and his forerunner Democritus.

Most books on Epicureanism published in France in the 20th century were written by Marxists. (Well, I suppose you could say that of most books published in France on any topics in the 20th century…!) I have a booklet on Lucretius at home published in France in the 1950s in a collection called Les classiques du peuple – The classics of the people. In the Acknowledgement section, the author thanks all the Soviet specialists of Epicureanism and materialism for any original insight that might appear in the book.

Marx found in Epicureanism a materialist conception of nature that rejected all teleology and all religious conceptions of natural and social existence. And to get back to Mises, that’s also precisely what he liked about it. The section of Human Action in which you find the quote I read at the beginning is called, “A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society.” In it, Mises denounces all the nonrationalist, nonutilitarian and nonliberal social doctrines which, he says, “must beget wars and civil wars until one of the adversaries is annihilated or subdued.”

As most of you probably know, Mises included natural law traditions in these non-scientific doctrines, a crucial point over which Rothbard and many of his followers who are here present disagreed with him. He embraced a utilitarian view instead, for which “Law and legality, the moral code and social institutions are no longer revered as unfathomable decrees of Heaven. They are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency with regard to human welfare.”

Epicurus had reacted against the Platonic concepts of Reason with a capital R, the Good, the Beautiful, Duty, and other absolute concepts existing in themselves in some supernatural world. For Epicurus, what is moral is what brings pleasures to individuals in a context where there is no social strife. The Epicurean wise man will keep the covenant and not harm others not because he wishes to comply with some moral injunction being imposed from above, but simply because that’s the best way to pursue his happiness and keep his tranquility of mind.

Mises says the same thing when he repeats his adherence to utilitarianism, which looks upon the rules of morality not as absolutes, but as means for attaining an individual’s desired ends through social cooperation. In his book Socialism, he writes: “The ethical valuation ‘good’ and ‘evil’ can be applied only in respect of ends towards which action strives. As Epicurus said “Vice without injurious consequences would not be vice. Since action is never its own end, but rather the means to an end, we call an action good or evil only in respect of the consequences of the action.” To Mises, Epicureanism inaugurated the emancipation of mankind precisely because it led to utilitarianism.

The very basis of praxeology, the logic of human action, rests on Epicurean concepts. Epicurus says that nature compels all living beings to search for pleasures and to avoid pain. When they reach their goal, they are in a state of contentment and rest that we can call happiness or tranquility of mind. Ataraxia is the term used by Epicurus to describe a perfect state of contentment, free or all uneasiness.

Reading the first pages of Human Action is like reading an Epicurean treatise. Mises explains in the section “The Prerequisites of Human Action” that “We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things.” He adds a reference here to John Locke who, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, uses the same type of language. Two pages on, Mises mentions Epicurean ataraxia and again defends Epicurus against the attacks of “the theological, mystical and other schools of a heteronomous ethic” which, he writes, “did not shake the core of Epicureanism because they could not raise any other objection than its neglect of the ‘higher’ and ‘nobler’ pleasures.”

In the same vein, Mises ridicules the naïve anthropomorphism that consists in applying human characteristics to deities defined as perfect and omnipotent. How could such a being be understood to be planning and acting, or be angry, jealous, and open to bribing, as he is shown in many religious traditions? As he writes in Human Action again, “An acting being is discontented and therefore not almighty. If he were contented, he would not act, and if he were almighty, he would have long since radically removed his discontent.”

In an article on the implications of human action, Gene Callahan discusses this and asserts that Mises’ insight into the relationship of praxeology to any possible supreme being is quite original, at least as far as he knows. Well, in fact, this insight is straight out of Epicureanism. Epicurus declared that since Gods were perfect and completely contented, they could not be involved in any way in human affairs. It was silly to be afraid of them, and useless to try to propitiate them. For this of course, he was suspected of being an atheist, and this is a major reason why he has been so vilified by Christian writers for centuries.

There are several groups of neo-Epicureans that one can find on the Web today. Several years ago, I joined a discussion list on Epicureanism and discovered to my amazement that most of the participants were libertarians, many of whom Randians or former Randians. One can find articles on the Internet discussing similarities between Objectivism and Epicureanism, and how Ayn Rand has been influenced by Epicurus.

This is just one more example of how this ancient philosophy is connected to the classical liberal and libertarian tradition. As I said at the beginning, very little has been written on this or for that matter on Epicureanism in general. I only had time here to give a brief overview of some of these connections. My hope is that other students and scholars will see here interesting avenues of research and uncover the various threads that lead from Epicurus to Mises.

by Martin Masse, reprinted by permission of Le Quebecois Libre

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Carvaka and Epicurus

Carvaka is the Indian philosophy of materialism. It is considered a precursor of Epicureanism, and here we will look primarily at Carvaka, leaving to the end a brief comparison of the two philosophies.

It is worth establishing a few parallels at the outset, however. Both Carvaka and Epicureanism are materialisms, and since materialism is the basic concept for atheism, it is not surprising that both reject the influence, if not the existence, of gods. As a result, both are seen as threatening by the dominant religious authorities, to the point that their works were destroyed. Much of what we know about them derives from writings about them rather than by them. Due largely to persecution by the Christians, Epicureanism had died out by 400 CE, with the last significant revival occurring in the 18th century. Similarly, Carvaka’s philosophy seems to have died out shortly after 1400 CE. Carvaka scriptures consist of the Brhaspati or Lokayata sutras.

As the Brahmins could not refute these sutras logically, the Carvakas were demonized and they were destroyed. Neither these texts nor any other writings of the Carvaka school have been preserved, although there are many references to them in the Vedas, a large body of texts originating in India, written roughly between 1500 and 500 BCE. They form the basis of the Hindu religion, and orthodox Hindus believe the Vedas were not written by man but directly revealed, just as fundamentalist Christians and Muslims believe that the Bible and the Koran respectively were not written by man. Despite India’s reputation for religion and mystics, the Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen maintains that there is a larger volume of atheistic and agnostic writings in Sanskrit and Pali (an Indo-Aryan dialect) than in any other classical tradition–Greek, Latin, Hebrew, or Arabic. He points out that Buddhism, developed in India, is the only agnostic world religion.

Materialists were among the earliest Indian philosophers and arose primarily as a reaction to the “heretics” and especially the “nihilists” who rebelled against the Vedas. The heretics denied the authority of the Vedas, and the nihilists claimed that nothing existed except thought. The materialists rejected gods and the dominance of the Vedic priests but also nihilism. They attempted to understand and explain natural phenomena through the properties of the four material elements: earth, water, fire, and air. Carvakas believed that the elements may change their nature at any time; thus nature does not contain eternal laws. Like modern day scientists, they believed that life and intelligence originate from inanimate substance by chance. Thus, the mind is not separate from the body, but part of it. When the body dies, life and intelligence perish also.

As materialists, Carvakas believed that direct perception is the surest method to prove the truth of anything. Some interpreters say that they thought inference (or cause and effect relationships) was useless, while others suggest they thought inference can be useful in extending knowledge in the real world but should not be used to establish dogma regarding the supernatural, life after death, or any other phenomenon which is not available to ordinary perceptual experience. In any case, they thought that we need not and should not rely on testimony or comparisons to make inferences. Rather we should discover direct cause and effect in nature itself and not base our beliefs on the experience and teachings of others.

Carvakas believed there is no hell except hell on earth and there is no paradise except the sensual pleasures of everyday life; that the activities of religious priests are not an indication of the existence of another world but simply represent a livelihood.

Both Epicureans and Carvakas advocated joyful living (unlike Buddhism and Jainism, which emphasize penance) but were accused wrongly of advocating hedonism. Both believed we should “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” And Carvakas even suggested that a person go into debt if necessary to live a happy life.

Like Epicurus, Carvakas thought one should be careful in choosing one’s pleasures to make sure that they do not bring pain as a consequence. The fine arts like music were to be encouraged as they bring pleasure and Carvakas (followers of Carvaka) contributed to their development.

Many of the above teachings of the Carvakas and Epicurus are admirable and appealing. However, some believe there is an anti-social side to both. Nothing is recognized by the Carvakas as a duty, and they do not recognize vice and virtue. They believed that one could do what one wanted to acquire wealth which would in turn facilitate pleasure. Thus Carvakas have been associated with Machiavellian behaviour to accumulate wealth and power, behaviour that many today would view as unethical, if not illegal.

Some commentators believe that the amoralism of the Carvakas is only a logical conclusion of their premises, however. They may have had a more moral view than some believe, disliked the killing of animals, and some Carvakas were vegetarians. And we know that they were not without social concerns, as they accused the Brahman pundits of exploiting poor people by getting them to support unnecessary rituals and sacrifices in the name of god. Also, Carvakas denied the artificial divisions in society promoted by the caste system and restrictions on women.

Carvakas did have an answer to those who would accuse them of encouraging amoral behaviour. They believed that the rationale for good conduct does not arise out of perception, but is rather a logical conclusion based on the desirability of social harmony. Regulation of negative human activity (theft, murder, etc.) should be undertaken by the state, and man will abstain from activities prohibited by the state in order to avoid punishment. Moreover, the science of the laws of state are the ones worth studying, as they are man-made and can be changed and perfected.

Epicurus was clearly much influenced by the Carvakas, perhaps through intervening materialists, despite the 300 years that separated them. In some sense, one can view Epicurus as a more sophisticated version of Carvaka philosophy, which taught that the elements are divisible into tiny particles, but not into atoms, as atoms are invisible and hence incompatible with the premise that all knowledge is based on perception. But there is a weakness in relying completely on perception; we remain ignorant of things invisible, and we can be deceived and misled by our own fears, prejudices and expectations. Epicurus was able to go the next step and accept the concept of atoms even though we can not see them.

Regarding the supernatural, the position of Epicurus is again similar to but not as extreme as that of Carvakas, who rejected the idea of all supernatural phenomena whether in terms of gods or the afterlife, but Epicurus acknowledged that there could be gods, only the gods are not interested in the affairs of man. Hence, we should live our lives as if there were no gods. Both schools believed that pleasure should be our main goal in life, but Carvakas wrote mainly about pleasures of the body whereas Epicurus believed that pleasures of the mind are actually superior to pleasures of the body, again, a more sophisticated concept. Finally, just as Carvakas claimed dignity for all people, Epicurus denied the divisions in Greek society associated with women and used his Garden to promote the idea of freedom and equality.

by Martha Horsley

Read about the Carvaka School in HumanisticTexts.org

Read about Indian Materialism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Bibliography

Acharya, Madhava. 14th century. Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha. Internet

Hanrott, Robert. 2006. Epicurus.

Jayaram, V. 2007. Atheism in Ancient India. www. hinduwebsite.com

Raju, P. T. 2005. Philosophical Traditions of India. Internet

Roy, Avijit. 2006. Rationalism, Freethinking and Prospects of Mukto-mona.Internet

Sellars, Roy Wood. 1927. Why Naturalism and Not Materialism Philosophical Review (36) (1927), pp. 216-225. Sen, Amartya. 1998. An Assessment of the Millenium. Internet

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An Epicurean Manifesto

The following piece was kindly contributed by philosopher Dr. Dara Fogel, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma (2006) & is currently an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Central Oklahoma. For many of us in the Epicurean community, it resonated exactly with our feelings about how philosophy has degenerated into irrelevance, how our contemporaries fail to see its value and use, and how applied Epicureanism might help to revive mainstream interest in philosophy. It also explains the Epicurean therapeutic process in some detail. The piece was originally written for the Province of the Mind page.

Contemporary academic philosophy fails to perform the time-honored therapeutic function of philosophy, leading to the marginalization of philosophy as a discipline and an increase in poor public philosophic hygiene. The study of ancient Greek philosophy, particularly that of Epicurus, can greatly enrich and heal our neurotic culture, bringing to it a lost art of thinking that is at once old and new.

The Failure of Philosophy

What do Epicurus, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein have in common? All four of these respected modern philosophers accuse philosophy as a discipline of the failure to respond to the philosophical needs of society. Philosophy has currently become devalued to the degree that the one-time “Queen of the Faculties” is now reduced to a narrow, dry field that seeks to drive away all but the most anal retentive nerds and the terminally boring/confusing geeks among those of us called to worship at the temple of Athene.

Over two millennia ago, Epicurus said: “Empty is that philosopher’s argument by which no human suffering is therapeutically treated. For just as there is no use in a medical art that does not cast out the sickness of bodies, so too there is no use in philosophy, if it does not throw out suffering from the soul.” (Us. 221 – Porph Ad Marc .31, p. 209 23 N; as in Nussbaum, p. 102)

Nietzsche decried the dishonesty of a philosophy that quests after some veiled abstract truth that no one but another professional philosopher could possibly appreciate (Raabe, p. 1, Suber, p. 2 and Melchert, ps. 549 & 600). Dewey urged the community of philosophy to become involved in solving human problems, not rhetorical ones (Raabe, p.2 and Melchert, ps. 594 & 595). Ludwig Wittgenstein questioned the use of philosophy if it had no application to the “important questions of everyday life.” (Raabe, p. 1) A philosophy that does not address human issues has little relevance outside its austere domain, and is justifiably marginalized by disciplines that better serve human issues. If philosophy as a distinct discipline or legitimate profession is to survive, she must be awake and responsive to the aching need for individual and social philosophical hygiene.

Moribund Philosophy

At some point in the last one hundred or so years, something happened to philosophy.

Instead of being the field of thought that acted as the catalyst between different disciplines, philosophy found herself losing ground that had once been securely within her domain, such as political theory, psychology and physics. Once stripped of her breadth of vision by her own children, the encroaching sciences, philosophy herself seemed to forget her once lofty role.

Trying to fit herself into the confines imposed by her ungrateful offspring, philosophy turned to sterile abstraction and meaningless regurgitation of the history of philosophy, rather than risking any original thoughts. Philosophy withdrew into herself, withdrawing from the tangible challenge of practical human dilemmas. Philosophy whored herself to the sciences and linguistics, teaching inductive and predicate logic without teaching about the larger philosophical context from which logic gets its meaning and justification. Philosophy has failed to re-assert her sovereignty, abdicating her throne as the discipline that combines and explains the cosmos, both inner and out. In her despondency, philosophy turned against herself, and began to erode her own historic foundations with acidic analysis, committing slow suicide as she systematically proved the logical fallibility and unreliability of every proposed ethic.

“[I]t cannot be just a question of philosophy having somehow spontaneously withered away over the past century or so; rather the significant fact is that there has been a deliberate and resolute effort to overthrow it, and that this indeed has been the principle project of philosophy itself in the ultra-modern era.” (Emphasis original. Jackson, p.2)

Post-modernists have claimed that the era of philosophy ended with Hegel and the denial of an absolutist worldview. Now, rationality has fallen from grace in a relativist culture. Reason no longer serves as the prime justifier, and wisdom is no longer sought in the field of higher education. Now, the parroting of professor’s pet theories and the flattery of administrative egos has supplanted the search for understanding. Higher education has become extended vocational training, with anything not contributing to that end vulnerable to budget cuts and loss of faculty.

The Need for Philosophy

As F.C. Schiller wrote in 1933: “The naïve student insists on viewing the system [of philosophy] from the outside, as a logical structure, and not as a psychological process extending over a lifetime. And he thereby throws away, or loses, the key to understand.” (in Suber, p.3)

Philosophy has historically been a subjective exercise, aimed at the dual goals of wisdom and personal enlightenment. These dual goals did not find value in the obscure and irrelevant, but rather sought the practical application of philosophy to resolve the complexities and paradoxes of human life and interaction. By viewing philosophy as a specialized field, rather than interdisciplinary, academic philosophy has failed to meet the deep human need for wisdom and understanding that gave rise to the birth of philosophy. Philosophy is not an empirical science and loses all justification if treated as such. The need for wisdom is as tangible today as it was two thousand years ago. But the only surviving philosophical establishments continually fail to answer this need.

But it was not always so…

Past Resurgence

“Natural philosophy does not make people boastful and loud mouthed, nor flaunters of culture, the thing so hotly competed for among the multitude, but modest and self-sufficient and proud at their own goods, not at those of their circumstances.” ~ (Epicurus Vatican Saying 45)

Ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, were concerned with understanding the mysteries of the universe and the human psyche. They did not primarily concern themselves with the proper establishment of symbolic logic or the ranking of trivia. Ancient philosophy was used as a means of identifying and achieving what leads to a life well lived.

In the past two decades, a revival of ancient Greek thought has emerged, particularly in the field of ethics. Virtue Ethics (as this movement is called) harkens back to a teleological view of human life. Ancient philosophers often referred to their goal as eudaemonia, which has been translated variously as pleasure, happiness and flourishing, but the idea is intuitively evident, despite the difficulty in translation. Eudaemonia, as the idea of a satisfying, complete life, implies some degree of both social connection to others and existential health. The cultivation of certain virtues is seen as instrumental in achieving eudaemonia, primarily, the practice of phronesis is critical. In Aristotle, this is often taken to mean practical wisdom. In Epicurus, phronesis is often taken to mean prudence. Either way, the thought is the same: the exercise of reason is essential to discerning the path to eudaemonia.

This ancient philosophy has been adapted and re-fitted for contemporary tastes by Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethicists, such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Rosalind Hursthouse. In Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, the goal of eudaemonia is sought through the achievement of a moderation of the virtues that is neither deficient nor excessive. Sweet eudaemonia lies in maintaining a balance between extremes. Virtue leads to eudaemonia through appropriateness in manner, desires and actions.

Although Virtue Ethics acknowledges and tries to correct Aristotle’s cultural shortcomings regarding the status of women and charges of elitism, the Neo-Aristotelian Virtue ethicists generally accept Aristotle’s implicit assumption of the philosophical good health of social institutions and practices. From our current standpoint in an age of relativism, it is obvious to us that our customs and beliefs are rarely infected by rationality.

In the melting pot of America, we have the wholesale public adoption of bits and pieces from rival and often conflicting belief systems, as advertisers and spin doctors compete for our allegiance and our money. Our society is observably neurotic. But this is nothing new – humanity has always been plagued by the dilemma of conflicting goods. It just wasn’t as evident or as pressing in the days before mass communication and the population explosion.

But there was one ancient philosopher who was able to hear beyond the droning, reassuring lullaby of Mother Culture….

Two millennia ago, Epicurus called the whole fabric of social beliefs and practices into question, unlike Aristotle, who assumed that most socially derived beliefs and practices (hence, society itself) to be mostly true and healthy. Epicurus held this to be an extremely naïve assumption. Greed, anxiety, ambition and erotic obsession are the obvious evidence that society is not based on any model of rational or even healthy beliefs. Aristotle’s dialectic assumes aristocratic values as the norm, thus perpetuating elitism, as only those with the resources and education of an aristocrat could afford to engage in it. (Nussbaum, p.104) Therefore, a resurrection of Aristotelian thought carries limitations set by the basic assumptions of its paradigmatic model.

The philosophy of Epicurus provides a more suitable foundation for a recovery of the practice of philosophy, as it avoids the stumbling block of dependence on externals to achieve eudaemonia. The standards Epicurus employs are not culturally dependent in the sense that taints Aristotle’s ethics. Instead, the goal of eudaemonia is a subjective state of well being and not an external display. Katastemic disturbances of the soul are considered worse by far than kinetic pains in the body (Diogenes Laertius, 10.137 text 9). Pains in the body can be easily ignored or sedated, but you can never escape your own existential self without help. Peace of mind and painlessness in the body are the ultimate goal of Epicurean philosophy and therapy.

Philosophy is the means by which disturbances of the soul are cast out. Disturbances of the soul are caused by false belief and so-called “empty” desires, which are either avoidable altogether or amenable to alleviation. Human misery, Epicurus contended, is caused by endless demands of uncontrolled desire. As most desires are based on false belief, the removal or modification of the false belief can effectively remove the desire, and hence, the misery of dissatisfaction. (Nussbaum, p. 50)

The Four-Fold Remedy

Epicurus proposed the Four-fold Remedy as the means to armor oneself against the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” The Four-fold Remedy dissolves the fundamental obstacle to happiness: Anxiety. The Four-fold Remedy deserves much greater depth and space than is allowable within the constraints of this essay. Space allows only a cursory review of the heart of Epicurus’ teachings. (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 127-32, Diogenes Laertius 10.121-135)

The Four-fold Remedy is:

Don’t fear the gods
Don’t worry about death
What is good is easy to get
What is terrible is easy to endure

This effectively claims to do away with fear (both mortal and immortal), greed and status seeking. The emphasis is on learning to discern which desires are “natural (or normative, without excess), which are “natural but not necessary” (such as the desire for sex), and which desires are “empty” (inspired by the corruption of society). (Cicero, Tusclulan Disputation 5.93).

The Rediscovery of Applied Philosophy

In The Therapy of Desire, Martha Nussbaum discusses how Epicurus’ ancient techniques of applied philosophy might fill the void left when academic philosophy abandoned her therapeutic role.

The application of Epicurean therapy acts as a curative for wrong or dysfunctional beliefs, judgements and desires. Society is not held to be ethically healthy, and as such, it can infect individuals with its sickness. Childrearing techniques are often defective, with undue stress on wealth, status and competition. This can easily warp the defenseless soul of a child.

Epicurean therapy, as interpreted by Nussbaum, carries a commitment to action. This active philosophy seeks to restore the student to moral health through rigorous examination of beliefs, judgements and desires. This is to be opposed to a passive philosophy, content merely to record and systemize beliefs, like a cow chewing her cud. Epicurean philosophy is pro-active in alleviating suffering, instead of assigning the redemption of the masses to the mercy of religion, politics or medicine.

Epicurean philosophy is not merely reflective and abstract – its goal is no less than the change and redemption of the world, one mind at a time. The identification of an incorrect belief or judgement goes a long way towards the resolution of the problem. Therapeutic philosophy scrutinizes deeply entrenched, unconscious beliefs for falsehood and fallacy.

Problems interfering with the eudaemonic goal are seen to originate not within the person or the emotions, but rather, to be the result of a cognitive problem. Passions are held to rest upon the corrupt beliefs foisted by a corrupt society, and so liable to the same critiques as the social fabric. All human societies suffer from passions run rampant: anger, fear and erotic obsession; but each society has its own particular system of beliefs which gives rise to these passions. Therefore, applied philosophic techniques must take differences in cultures into consideration. To deal with the passions, reason is not abandoned, as passions are seen to be motivated by deeply held beliefs.

In Epicurus’ thinking, humans are born with a full capacity for flourishing, but this innate ability becomes corrupted through the adoption of socially derived “norms” which usurp the original, natural system of beliefs, creating a false self that is a slave to these culturally inspired corrupt feelings. (Nussbaum, p. 107) Without social conditioning, Epicurus claims that humans would be free from most psychic pain and disturbance. (Epicurus, Key Doctrines 7,40; Diogenes Laertius 10.117-20)

Eudaemonia, or fulfillment, is not a mere negative state, free of anxiety, pain and everything fun. It is also a positive state, in that it implies a fully functional, unimpeded activity using all the faculties. It is by no means stagnant or inactive.

“Philosophy heals human diseases, diseases produced by false beliefs. Its arguments are to the soul as the doctor’s remedies are to the body. They can heal, and they are to be evaluated in terms of their power to heal. As the medical art makes progress on behalf of the suffering body, so philosophy for the soul in distress. Correctly understood, it is no less than the soul’s art of life (techne biou).” (Nussbaum. p.14)

Epicurean philosophy differs from psychoanalysis in one critical way that must be noted: psychology does not want to admit to a “normative idea of health,” being content to just remove or alleviate troublesome symptoms. Epicurus employed the ultimate standard of Katastemic pleasure (freedom from fear and anxiety) as the end of eudaemonia to restore students to a flourishing life, and not just the reduction of symptoms. (ibid. p.26)

As Mother Culture’s crooning is often a corrupting influence, Epicurus appealed to a concept of nature that implies a normative state (ex: the “cradle” arguments in Diogenes Laertius 2.88, Inwood and Gerson, p. 44-45). This is an appeal to a state of nature prior to the corruption of society. This is necessarily value-laden, what Bernard Williams would term a “thick” concept. This “natural” norm is justified by deep human feelings and desires, not through any scientific means. Because this “nature” carries its own inherent values, it sees many articles of daily belief to be “impediments to flourishing.” (Nussbaum. p.32) Healthy, “natural” desires are easily fulfilled, whereas “empty” desires are never satisfied.

Three diagnostic ideas/tools are utilized by Epicurean therapy:

First, the philosophic practitioner requires a tentative diagnosis of the disease(s) and which conflicting beliefs/judgements may be responsible for preventing the student from satisfaction with life.
Second, some teleological standard of satisfaction is required in advance as the criteria of wholeness. This standard or norm is usually general and open to amendment as needed.
Lastly, the philosophical practitioner requires a conception of the appropriate philosophical method and procedure required to treat the situation. (Nussbaum. p.28)

These philosophic tools provide for the recognition of error and tend, by their very nature, to lead to a direct grasp of the truth.

False beliefs lead to empty desires. The cure for false beliefs must challenge and defeat false belief through reason. Thus, philosophy is the cure necessary to a fulfilling life.

The Rationality of Emotion

Epicurean therapy urges the student to deal with irrational emotions (passions) as well as with beliefs and judgements. Reason is seen as the means to diagnose and relieve the passions. The argument is that even “irrational” passions have some system of belief. Modification of belief is held to result in a modification of the passions. In other words, intellect can and does control and modify both the emotions and bodily desires (appetites). Emotions, therefore, are granted a cognitive component that can be addressed by the practice of therapeutic philosophy. Epicurean philosophy supposes that the emotions are more complex and ruled by reason than usually given in most accounts of the emotions. To deal with passion, therapeutic philosophy does not abandon reason and arguments in favor of popping a Zoloft or St. John’s Wort pill. Therapeutic philosophy takes up the ancient challenge to confront the foundational assumptions, beliefs and judgements of passions, themselves motivated by deep-seated beliefs and arguments. In therapeutic philosophy, some emotions are taken as “natural,” but most emotions and passions are held to be social constructs and hence requiring restructuring. (ibid. p.40)

Therapeutic philosophy must therefore rely on many forms of interventionist procedures to heal, not just relying on dialectic, as Aristotle did. Dialectic alone often does not carry the necessary impact to dislodge obstacles to flourishing. Therapeutic philosophy will also use indirect techniques to delve deep into student’s psyches, in addition to straightforward deductive arguments. Thus philosophy can make full use of narrative, imagination, friendship and trust, as well as rhetoric, to regain her lofty perch.

Features of Epicurean Therapy

There are several distinct features of Epicurean philosophic therapy, as interpreted by Nussbaum. These include:

A practical goal – all arguments are aimed at curing false beliefs and bringing the student to eudaemonia. Arguments must be causally effective and cure or change unwanted beliefs and behaviors.
Value-relativity – this challenges students to see their cure as fulfilling their deepest desires. This involves getting students to recognize which desires are empty and which are choiceworthy.
Responsiveness – arguments are adaptive to particular cases and situations. Treatment is highly individualized as needed.
All arguments are directed to health as an individual, not applying a pre-established social or communal end.
Reasoning is only instrumental to the achievement of eudaemonia and is not itself the goal. False beliefs cannot be permanently eradicated, and so even reason is vulnerable to the corrupting influences from society.
The standards of virtue (ex: consistency, logic, validity and clarity) are purely instrumental. That is, they are valuable only so far as they lead to true beliefs. If the arguments fail to move the student, they are worthless.
Asymmetry of roles – the student relies on the philosophic practitioner, like a medical patient relies on a doctor for a cure. Patients must be able to trust the knowledge and motives of their practitioner.
Separation from alternative views – as Epicurus withdrew from the madness of the world to the Garden, so therapeutic philosophy seeks to shield its students from the corruption of the world. (ibid, p. 120 – 130)

As the above list shows, therapeutic philosophy is well suited to meet the needs of many a neurotic at the dawn of the third millennium.

Practices of Epicurean Therapy

Epicurean therapy utilizes three primary practices in pursuit of eudaemonia.

The first is memorization – the repetition of Epicurus’ teachings makes the teachings internal, stimulating a subjective comprehension of the nature of desire.
Second is confession: a psychic purge in which symptoms are brought into the open for analysis, diagnosis and treatment.
And finally, informing – in which the practitioner uses alternative means to complete the diagnosis of reluctant confessors. (ibid. p. 132)

The deepest practices of Epicurean therapy pre-suppose an intended community dedicated to the telos of a particular view of eudaemonia. The whole environment is intended to contribute the greatest katastemic and kinetic pleasures to its members. Towards that end, the student must be willing to submit herself to the discipline of this kind of therapy. It will not appeal to all, as the choice of a philosophy is highly personal. But for some kinds of philosophers and some kinds of students, Epicureanism is highly appealing, either as a member of such a community or adapting Epicurus’ teachings to accommodate a worldly life. While some might recoil in distaste at the Epicurean practice of informing, we often fail to see the plank in our own eyes and we are incapable of confessing what we deny exists.

In dealing with deep-seated beliefs and judgements, Epicurus was the first philosopher to acknowledge the unconscious and to work on it through cognitive therapy.

“Therapeutic argument is searchingly concrete. It approaches the pupil with a keen awareness of the daily fabric of her beliefs. And it holds, as well, that this fabric of belief is learned in particular cultural circumstances – to it commits itself to learning about and grappling with those circumstances.” (ibid. p. 44)

Re-Evaluating Philosophy

As I claimed earlier, philosophy has abdicated her interdisciplinary throne, lowering her horizons and contenting herself with musty volumes and obscure journals full of dull, hair splitting rhetoric. Of what ultimate value is all this abstract analysis of minutia, while literally billions of people suffer from the deleterious effects of poor philosophical hygiene? In my humble opinion, philosophy has allowed the abuse and ingratitude of her offspring to shake her self-esteem and hence curtail her ability to shape social and personal realities.

For too long, the study of philosophy has meant the study of the history of philosophy. The practice of therapeutic philosophy, whether by the Epicurean model outlined above, or through the Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, espouses an active philosophy that engages the lives of practitioners and students alike, instead of being confined to mind-numbing tomes and boring lectures. In short, the larger concept of philosophy goes beyond the bounds of any curriculum or professional prestige. The view of therapeutic philosophy I advocate in this essay may not get me tenure, but it has the potential to change the world: to make philosophy more accessible to a public in dire need. A more philosophically hygienic world would be of benefit to everyone.

I further charge that those professional philosophers who have not used their privileged knowledge therapeutically have failed philosophy when they refused to defend her honor as the “queen of the faculties,” when they forsook the philosophical needs of society for the sake of keeping their tenure. When they sold out. Of what use is a dry, stale philosophy which matters to life not one whit? Who needs it? I don’t.

What I do need is a philosophy that enhances, enriches and – dare I say it – redeems human life. I need a philosophy that is the foundation and catalyst of all the other fields. I need a philosophy that lives and responds to the individuals who partake of her blessings. I need a philosophy that is, above all, an art of thinking, which helps me to untie the knots of my thinking by examining the beliefs that sabotage my peace of mind. I need a philosophy that “… is an activity that secures the flourishing life by arguments and reasonings.” (Sextus M 11.169.Us219) As a lover of wisdom, I need philosophy to reclaim her rightful place and mediator and transcender of knowledge. I need to know that the sacrifices laid at Athene’s altar are not in vain. I need for it to really mean something when someone says “Doctor of Philosophy”… And I’ve got a hunch that a lot of others need that kind of philosophy too.

Conclusion – Everything old is new again

I can’t help but wonder if this is an instance of infinite reoccurrence, as Epicurus’ atomism suggests.

But seriously, Epicurus’ therapeutic teachings seem amazingly sane, indeed, frighteningly so. To adequately describe the scope and depth of Epicurus’ eudaemonic teachings would require volumes itself, and is unfortunately beyond the scope of this essay. But the adoption of the Epicurean telos of katastemic pleasure seems most appealing to those buffeted on the high seas of life. The older I get, the more I crave undisturbedness. For this reason, I usually abhor procrastination. Recently, I have experienced the disturbance of conflicting goods. In my studies of Epicurus, I found myself applying his wise teachings to my own dilemmas. In examining my own beliefs, I found many of them to be empty desires, which no amount of striving will ever fulfill. I consider this to be invaluable self-knowledge. Although the process is arduous and continual, I truly have come to believe that philosophical hygiene is the greatest problem facing humanity. I charge that if you call yourself a philosopher and are not doing your part to bring others to philosophic health, then you are part of the problem, and not worthy of the honor of calling yourself a philosopher.

… So… Which side of the fence are you on?

And the blessed teacher wrote: “Let nobody put off doing philosophy when he is young, nor slacken off in philosophy because of old age. For nobody is either too young nor too old to secure the health of the soul.” ~ (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 122, in Inwood and Gerson, p. 28)

Bibliography

Inwood, B and Gerson, L.P., trans., The Epicurus Reader. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994

Long, A. and Sedley, D.N., The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. I Cambridge University Press 1987

Lucretius, The Nature of Things, Copley, F., trans. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. 1977

MacIntyre, A., After Virtue. Indianapolis: Notre Dame Press 1984

Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire – Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton University Press 1994

Melchert, N., The Great Conversation – A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. Third Edition Mtn. View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co. 1999

LeBon, T., “The Clinic – A Regular Philosophical Counseling Column” http://members.aol.com/timlebon/clinic.html

Suber, P., “Philosophy as Autobiography” http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/meta/autobio.html

American Philosophical Practitioners Association, “What’s the APPA?” http://www.appa.edu.html

Jung, J., “The Future of Philosophy” http://www.bu.edu/wep/papers/cont/contjung.html

Jackson, F., “Post-Modernism and the Recovery of Philosophical Tradition” http://www.mun.ca/animus/1996vol1/jackson.html

Raabe, P., “What is Philosophical Counseling?” http://www.philosophynews.com/whip/pc/archived/pc199905.html

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Towards an Epicurean Atheology

Ancient Epicurean tradition held that the Gods were real and even went as far as to hold that they were material beings, that is, made up of atoms. Jefferson reiterated the general presumption behind this belief when he said:

“To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1820

The belief in the atomic constitution of the Gods was ancient man’s way of saying that, without being anchored in matter somehow, the Gods could not be said to exist in any real or significant manner.

A more or less scientific understanding of the Gods in recent decades emerged from the Jungian school of psychoanalysis. The hypothesis of Gods as archetypes was advanced decades later by mythographer Joseph Campbell. By equating the Gods of the human race with archetypes of the collective unconscious, and therefore as inherited psychological instincts that are, presumably, written in our DNA, we may begin to apprehend the psychological nature of the Gods. In other words, we inherit not only physical traits, but psychological ones. A baby’s inherited, unlearned, memory of the suckling instinct and the changes that occur at puberty are best explained by these archetypes.

In explaining the hypothesis of archetypes as inherited instincts, Joseph Campbell once related how small birds in the Galapagos Islands, when they see a large plane flying over them, experience panic and call for their parents to comfort them. Now, in the Galapagos Islands these birds have no natural predators. But their ancestors, who evolved in South America, did live under the threat of the condor, the largest bird of prey in the continent. And so, natural selection had favored this instinct of panic, and modern descendants in the Galapagos still exhibit a vestige of the instinct.

Notice the many dragon myths in human culture. There are no dragons in nature, but virtually all mythologies have them. The Jungian view is that the memory of the predators we learned to fear in our evolution, perhaps even going back as far as when the first tiny mammals lived under the shadow of the giant dinosaurs, still lives in the depths of our collective psyche, that through natural selection we inherited the instinctual panic that helped our ancestors survive.

There is recent, very preliminary, epigenetic research that seems to point to cellular memory of a kind other than the chemical language codified in our DNA. It shows that experiences of stress from a great famine, or from an event like 9/11, can have effects on the next generation, and the next one, and so on. As such, the panic that our human, ape, and mammalian ancestors experienced in the presence of saber tooth tigers, large birds of prey, snakes, and other beasts may have embedded itself into our psychological configuration. Further research in epigenetics will confirm or deny this hypothesis. If it confirms it, it will have redeemed Jung from the criticism by the established schools of psychology that consider him unscientific, and it will open up new and fascinating fields of knowledge concerning our myths and our collective unconscious. So far reaching is Jung’s influence in contemporary New Age thought that there is a Jungian spirituality movement.

Many of the Gods of Olympus emerged from our relatively recent, urbanized and civilized psychological history (Hermes the God of commerce and of cross-streets, which is where commerce happened; Athena the Goddess of wisdom, etc.), and therefore these Gods resonate deeply with much of today’s recognizable cultural reality rather than primitive instinctual panic. Still, even if Jung’s theories are confirmed, the Olympians and all the other Gods do not exist except as psychological, transpersonal instincts that we inherited and not as true, independent agents.

Within Epicurean tradition, the polemic on the nature of the Gods has revolved around the realist (the Gods are physical, atomic, real beings) versus the idealist (the Gods are man-made mental constructs) theories. These psychological Gods postulated by the Jungians are fundamentally different from how they were imagined throughout history and can perhaps be classified as fitting within the idealist interpretation of Epicurean (a)theology. Although I do believe the Gods may be useful in therapy, in the end it is still wise to remember the first of Epicurus’ remedies: there is no reason to fear them.

Nietzche went as far as to say famously that ‘God is Dead’, but for many, like philosopher Michel Onfray, it seems like the vestiges of the biblical God are everywhere and that we still haven’t figured out what to do with his corpse. It would seem that the psychological tasks before us, as we stand over the carcasses of all the Gods of history, remain untackled, that the Superman whom Nietzche predicted would render life valuable and meaningful in the absence of divine agents, has yet to arrive.

At the risk of seeming anachronistic, I believe Epicurus may fulfill the role of Nietzche’s Superman. Yes, he lived 2,300 years ago, but Nietzche acknowledged that after Epicurus, Western thought only degenerated. He was the apex of classical thought, ergo we can assume Epicurus was at least on to the task of the Superman: it is on his shoulders that we must stand.

What, specifically, is Epicurean atheology?

Epicurus was as much concerned about the nature of the Gods as about their quality, the merit of the object of one’s worship. His first official doctrine is as follows:

A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness. – Principal Doctrine 1

This teaching forms the foundation of his rejection of common ideas about the Olympian Gods, as presented in the Homeric works. Epicurus reasoned that whatever Gods there were would not behave in immoral ways, would not engage in rape, adultery, jealousy, and all the other behaviour that the legends attribute to them. As such, I argue that Epicurus’ theology is an atheology, that it can not be reconciled with traditional concepts of theism and that it represents a fundamentally philosophical, secular humanist, and irreligious understanding of the Gods.

A philosophical theology requires that the object of one’s worship embody the virtues and perfections idealized in philosophy. The late Roman tradition of personifying and revering abstract virtues like Prudence, Justice, Liberty, and so on, as part of one’s civic duty is in line with Epicurean ideals. Epicurus believed that we could cultivate ataraxia by contemplating these virtues, as personified in the Gods. I admit, for instance, that the statue of Liberty does inspire awe, just not in a religious sense.

But both the awkward accomodation of Jungian ideas and the reverence of abstract ideals are likely to do little to revive Epicurean theism as it was lived in the ancient world. It is more accurate to speak today of an Epicurean atheology, in view of how most Epicureans today do not truly believe in the Gods and our naturalist worldview does not comfortably integrate them, except from a strictly secular and philosophical perspective.

I do not think this represents a major reform within our tradition, but in practice it denotes a decreased willingness to conform to societal norms inspired by theism, which is fully in evidence in contemporary Epicureanism.

Epicureans by Region

Europe

Finland; city of Turku: Suomen Epikurolaiset (Finnish Epicureans)

Greece: Friends of Epicurean Philosophy

Spain (Córdoba): Favor de contactar Antonio Pérez en apf.985@gmail.com

Australia

Sydney: Sydney Epicurus Philosophy Garden

United States

Please contact Hiram.

Our Hegemon

Honoring a sage is itself a great good to the one who honors. – Vatican Sayings

Epicurus of Samos, our cheerful Hegemon (Leader) whose name means Ally or Friend, was born in the Greek city of Samos and lived between the years 341 and 270 Before Common Era. During his life, he founded a noble philosophical tradition that bears his name, the details of which you will find in these pages.

Epicurus is truly a spiritual Ally to all humanists who seek to apply philosophy and science to the pursuit of wisdom and happiness. 2,300 years ago, he was among the first to propose the idea of the atom, he recommended wholesome association, favored science over superstition, taught a temperate form of hedonism where desires were to be kept under control, and brought the treasure of his science of happiness to thousands of followers who honored him as their founding hero who liberated them from false idols and from ignorance.

His schools, known as Gardens, were oases of cultivation, learning and serenity that flourished for over 700 years. After the calamities of the Dark Ages, the philosophy flourished again during the Renaissance and influenced enlightenment thinkers. Centuries later, Thomas Jefferson declared himself an Epicurean, left the fingerprints of the philosophy in the Declaration of Independence, and even cultivated his own Garden.

Recent translations of papyri near Pompeii written by ancient Roman teachers, as well as the current trend away from organized religion, have renewed interest in the philosophy. Contemporary Epicureans exist in many countries. The Society of Friends of Epicurus continues the teaching mission of the Gardens and seeks to experiment with replicating the ancient practice of Epicureanism and to update it in light of centuries of philosophical discourse and scientific insight.

In a world filled with anxiety and frivolous instant gratification, the simple life of an Epicurean is not for everyone. If you feel inspired to benefit from these teachings, welcome home! Count yourself among the Friends!

Mission of the Society of Friends of Epicurus

There was a school of philosophy in antiquity, the Skeptics, that postulated that nothing was knowable and that the senses were unreliable. Its teachings, in view of our modern system of checks and balances and the rigorous empirical and experimental, scientific methods that we apply today in our pursuit of knowledge, seem radical.

While surrounded by people who sought diviners, feared wrathful gods and a hellish afterlife, engaged in animal sacrifice and participated in mystery rites, Epicurus, instead, taught that there are legitimate means of acquiring knowledge. In fact, he considered science as one of the most important endeavors for human civilization and progress.

It is impossible for someone who is completely ignorant about nature to wash away his fears about the most important matters if he retains some suspicions about the myths. So it is impossible to experience undiluted enjoyment without studying what is natural. – 12th Principal Doctrine

Epicurus’ epistemology proposes that Truth is knowable, and that therefore there is such a thing as The Truth, as well as false opinions. Epicurus also teaches that certainty is desirable and that knowledge of the nature of things can liberate us from wrong views that sometimes generate unnecessary pain, confusion, and anxiety.

In this sense, the Epicurean system is a dogmatic secular philosophy that points the way to the Truth, with a capital T, and that seeks to be a civilizing force that liberates mortals from the shackles of superstition, ignorance, and suffering. It is dogmatic in the philosophical sense: it rejects as false the opinion that truths are unattainable. True ataraxia is impossible without the freedom from superstition that science and philosophy bring.

Epicurean Gardens had teaching missions: scribes there were in constant correspondence with people from all over the Mediterranean and were constantly replicating scrolls and producing educational materials. Epicureanism, with its good news about the science and art of living a pleasant life, is the first and only missionary humanist philosophy that classical Greece gave humanity. According to Norman DeWitt in his Epicurus and his Philosophy, early Epicureans had an “each one teach one” system.

Epicureans are the only humanists who ever sent missionaries to save Middle Easterners from the evils of religion and superstition. Even in the II Century of Common Era, Diogenes of Oenoanda built a wall and wrote an Epicurean Inscription on it so that his entire town would benefit from learning philosophy. In the opening of the inscription, he explains his mission:

… [observing that most people suffer from false notions about things and do not listen to the body] when it brings important and just [accusations] against the soul, alleging that it is unwarrantably mauled and maltreated by the soul and dragged to things which are not necessary (in fact, the wants of the body are small and easy to obtain — and the soul too can live well by sharing in their enjoyment — while those of the soul are both great and difficult to obtain and, besides being of no benefit to our nature, actually involve dangers). So (to reiterate what I was saying) observing that these people are in this predicament, I bewailed their behaviour and wept over the wasting of their lives, and I considered it the responsibility of a good man to give [benevolent] assistance, to the utmost of one’s ability, to those of them who are well-constituted. [This] is the first reason [for the inscription]…

[And I wanted to refute those who accuse natural science of being unable to be of any benefit to us.] In this way, [citizens], even though I am not engaging in public affairs, I say these things through the inscription just as if I were taking action, and in an endeavour to prove that what benefits our nature, namely freedom from disturbance, is identical for one and all.

And so, having described the second reason for the inscription, I now go on to mention my mission and to explain its character and nature.

Having already reached the sunset of my life (being almost on the verge of departure from the world on account of old age), I wanted, before being overtaken by death, to compose a [fine] anthem [to celebrate the] fullness [of pleasure] and so to help now those who are well-constituted. Now, if only one person or two or three or four or five or six or any larger number you choose, sir, provided that it is not very large, were in a bad predicament, I should address them individually and do all in my power to give them the best advice. But, as I have said before, the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing (for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep) moreover, [it is] right to help [also] generations to come (for they too belong to us, though they are still unborn) and, besides, love of humanity prompts us to aid also the foreigners who come here. Now, since the remedies of the inscription reach a larger number of people, I wished to use this stoa to advertise publicly the [medicines] that bring salvation. These medicines we have put [fully] to the test; for we have dispelled the fears [that grip] us without justification, and, as for pains, those that are groundless we have completely excised, while those that are natural we have reduced to an absolute minimum, making their magnitude minute.

… [One thing] only I ask of you: do not, even if [you should be] somewhat indifferent and listless, be [like] passers-by [in your approach] to the writings, [consulting] each [of them] in a patchy fashion and [omitting to read everything] …

Epicurus taught that philosophy that does not heal the soul is no better than medicine that cannot cure the body. Giving people teachings about human happiness and avoidance of suffering is seen as philanthropy. Our teaching mission contends with the accusation, repeated often throughout history, that Epicureanism is a purely self-indulgent philosophy of selfish hedonism. A proper introduction to how Epicureans deal with desires will lay that stereotype to rest. There is a strong element of philanthropy in the Epicurean tradition: we aim to impart Epicurus’ teachings as medicine for the soul.

The mission of the Society of Friends of Epicurus is to be true to the philanthropic spirit of the ancient Gardens: to spread a message that ultimately helps to liberate humanity from ignorance and unnecessary suffering, and to do so by forging with each other friendships that are intellectually vibrant.

We aspire to fully revitalize the Epicurean teaching mission both online and offline, establishing Gardens in every city where there are Epicureans willing to organize; We aspire to embody the ideals of friendship, autarchy, prudence, suavity, and all the other virtues that the ancient Epicureans exemplified, and as other communal needs emerge, we will seek to meet those needs.

In the process of helping pupils to discern between true Epicureanism and the alleged teachings that are attributed by indirect and sometimes hostile sources, we have established a lineage of established teachers, personalities, and thinkers within our tradition. We don’t always agree with all of them, but they are like the constellations that guide our heaven and help us find our way.

- The pre-Epicurean atomists: Leucippus, who taught Democritus, who taught Nausiphanes
- The Cyrenaics: Aristippus and Anniceris
- Epicurus of Samos, who taught Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Polyaenus: the four founders of our tradition, collectively known as the Men
- After Hermarchus (the second Hegemon), the Scholarchs were Polystratus, Dionysius, Basileides, Apollodorus
- Philonides of Laodicea, an Epicurean missionary to Asia
- Zeno of Sidon and his most renouned student Philodemus of Gadara
- Titus Lucretius Carus, author of On the Nature of Things
- Titus Pomponius Atticus was an avowed Epicurean who in the middle of the civil wars was friendly to everyone and was a great example of how to live
- Lucian of Samosata, a satirist
- Diogenes of Oenoanda, who erected a wall with inscriptions of our teachings
- Pierre Gassendi, who attempted to Epicureanize Christianity
- Frances Wright, author, and her mentor Thomas Jefferson, American founding father
- Norman Dewitt, author
- Michel Onfray, French hedonist author, founder of Université de Caen

See also the Honor Roll of Epicureans. Please learn more about Epicurus and his philosophy! Whether you consider yourself an Epicurean or not, you will undoubtedly benefit from his wholesome association through his teaching.

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